


Fresh Air

by entirely_the_wrong_sort



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Grimmauld Place, Pre-Order of the Phoenix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 01:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7079956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entirely_the_wrong_sort/pseuds/entirely_the_wrong_sort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the hottest summer in living memory and Ron could barely breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fresh Air

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a quick writing exercise done during a fest a couple years ago, but I like it (especially having never written either character before this), so you can all read it. Prompts given: Ice, Ron, Tonks.

The summer was the hottest that Ron could remember, and it hadn’t rained in weeks. The air was constantly thick with sweat and breath and mould and dust that the pathetic breeze - already dissipated by the thick curtains - could not shift. But worse than the closeness of the air was the unbearable oppression of the House. Though it was painfully hot to inhale, the house still gave him shivers. If it could speak, it would still have remained silent, offering no comfort in explanation for its consistent efforts to break you by keeping you trapped within its heavy, haunted walls until you just couldn’t – breathe.

Though they had tried their best to make Grimmauld Place habitable, the dust from the curtains, and the carpets and the lights had settled everywhere, from his nostrils to his underwear. He felt too dirty and he hadn’t bathed today. Both baths were out of action (an as yet unidentifiable but territorial creature had fallen from the cistern in one bathroom, and the taps in the other ran only blood). 

As usual, he couldn’t sleep. He’d never experienced claustrophobia before, but in the last few weeks he’d woken in the night in icy sweats from more panic attacks than he had had in his life. He stood barefoot in the corridor outside the room he’d soon share with Harry, fanning himself with his pyjama shirt trying to banish the heat. This huge, high-ceilinged house felt close and tiny. The halls had eyes that judged him; sounds that seemed to tickle his neck and legs; they smelt of Old and Dark. 

He couldn’t stand around as the ceiling and walls drew in around him so he made his way downstairs. Each movement he made was quick in his eagerness, but progress was heart-poundingly slow as he stopped, skin prickling, at every groan the spiteful wood gave beneath his feet. He didn’t want to wake the House.

At the door to the kitchen stairs he took a breath that felt like oil in his lungs and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Ordinarily, the door required a firm hand to open, so when it gave way at the touch of his fingers he almost had a heart attack. He stood face to startled face with Tonks, whose reaction-time was sharp enough not to scream or attack him.

“ _Merlin’s tits_ , Ron, you scared the shi- sherbet lemons out of me!” she hissed, hand on heart.

“ _I_ scared _you?_! What the fu- flobberworm are you _doing_ here?” Ron whispered.

“I couldn’t sleep.” The darkness had coloured her warm pink hair an icy blue, and her eyes looked tired and sad. In the pause, the pipes shuddered in the wall. Tonks gripped Ron’s arm in surprise. They looked at each other and, when the noise subsided, went down the steps together in a manner that to the unbiased eye might’ve seemed a little hurried.

“You don’t live here though,” Ron muttered. Tonks raised her wand and lazily flicked the still-warm lamps into life. Though no longer ghostly blue, she still looked tired.

“I know that, tossface,” she rolled her eyes, “I just came by to do some extra stuff for the Order before my Watch when I couldn’t sleep at home. What about you?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

Ron dragged a stool to the nearest stretch of bare wall and sat with his back against the stone, but it wasn’t the relief he’d hoped for. Rather than dry and icy, the rock was sweaty and slick. His thin shirt stuck to his skin; made him feel sick.

“In retrospect, I should’ve just waited,” Tonks bustled about pouring them both water and took a seat closest to Ron (“No ice?” Tonks shook her head apologetically as Ron took the glass from her anyway), “I don’t like being alone here, it gives me the creeps.”

“Me too. It’s the house, it’s too… I feel like it’s out to get me, y’know?”

“I doubt it’s sentient, Ron. But it wouldn’t surprise me! Curses ‘round every corner.”

Ron gulped down his water in one and unglued himself from this seat to get more. Tonks shifted in her chair, fanning herself unsuccessfully with her artfully torn t-shirt.

“If Kreacher’s anything to go by,” Ron nodded to his cupboard, “this place’ll send you bloody bonkers. I don’t wanna end up like that.”

“It’s no wonder Sirius ran away…”

Ron raised his eyebrows in interest but continued, “I can’t blame the bloke. It’s like a prison; there’s not even a garden.”

“Oh God, what I’d give to just sit out in a garden, a Circe’s beard over ice in my hand…” Tonks sighed and pulled a dreamy look. 

“With a little umbrella in it?” Ron grinned.

“Two of ‘em!”

“I’d love to play some Quidditch.”

Tonks nodded in appreciation, “We could start a team.”

“The Grimmauld Griffins–”

“The Orderly Phoenixes –”

“The Bloodtraitor Broomsticks!”

Tonks snorted into her glass and spilt water everywhere; Ron flew into silent hysterics and they both wheezed until their tummies hurt.

“Oh Lord," Ron giggled, "I can _absolutely_ see Dumbledore running an underground Quidditch scene in the garden.”

“I doubt anyone’d have the time.”

“Us lot have nothing but time!”

Their giggles slowly subsided and the grins slid from their faces as they remembered where they were. Ron’s face fell into a moody scowl and Tonks busied herself with her wet top.

“I hate it here, all cooped up. I’m used to being outdoors; it’s so lonely even when it’s packed. And it’s so fucking _hot_!”

Tonks slammed the glass clumsily onto the table. “Come on,” she stood up.

“Huh?”

“Get up, we’re going out.” She pulled him back towards the stairs.

“What?” he followed her anyway, “No, I can’t – I’m not allowed, none of us –”

Tonks rolled her eyes and whispered, “Just for some fresh air, not for long. No one’ll notice.”

He hesitated, but then a grin crept back across his face. He climbed the stairs quickly and quietly as he could and returned dressed within minutes.

“Where’ll we go?”

Tonks looked thoughtful and shrugged noncommittally, “I fancy ice cream.”

“Where’re we gonna find bloody _ice cream_ at this time?!”

“Mate, this is London: there’ll be somewhere.”

“Or what about an ice cold beer…”

“Hey, no underage drinking allowed. Unless you’re buying.”

Ron threw out an arm in front of Tonks, stopping her dead before she kicked over the creepy troll’s foot. They exchanged nervous looks but the old portrait was snoring behind her dusty, faded curtain. They tiptoed to the door, backs pressed against the opposite wall. It was cooler than the kitchen wall had been.

Reaching the door, Tonks flicked her wand and the lock inside it clunked. Ron pressed his hand to the doorknob. He could feel the freedom on the other side. Anxious and desperate, he wanted to leave so badly he wasn’t sure he could make himself come back in. The handle beneath his clammy fingers was cold and smooth. There was a subtle draught at his feet like he hadn’t felt in what seemed like years. At once, he turned the silver snake-embossed knob until it clicked…


End file.
